The Viking Mental Health Workshop “Laughter Is Healthy” went into great depths on the importance of laughter in everyday life for students and was held Oct. 10 at PCC.
The Viking Mental Health Workshops are held every week switching between the different campuses while also having different lessons to be taught.
The workshop featured many different activities and group friendly conversation that brought laughs all across the room.
Leading the exercise were two students that attend Cal State Long Beach.
Rebecca Magana, one of the workshop leaders began the workshop by asking questions such as, “What emotions or words do you tie into laughing?” These questions turned into a conversation between the 12 or 13 students that were attending.
“Different people react different to how you did previously and it stays with you longer,” Magana said.
After reading through a list of different pros and benefits from laughing as a group, more people in the room got comfortable and started to share personal experiences and other examples.
Once the packet was finished the workshop attendees watched YouTube videos of different pranks to find examples of different ways laughing can help the body and for a few more laughs.
After the prank videos, a T.E.D talk was shortly played that showed and explained the science and reasoning behind forcing yourself to laugh.
According to the discussion, laughter has many benefits to your body such as prevention of negative emotions by lowering stress hormones and provides your heart with increasing blood flow.
The students got to try these activities with each other in the room and after, the workshop shortly ended after.
Student Summer Knowles an ASL major was attending the workshop for the very first time and after the meeting, she shared her reason on attending the workshop.
“When I’m by myself I can’t bring stuff out of me,” Knowles said. “But when you’re in a group you see you’re not alone with these things and it just helps everyone that comes here feel more grounded.”
“Even with a small turn out, it still helps me grasp an idea of how the students are doing in general,” LBCC student Daisy Cook said.
The next workshop provided for students discussed the topic of depression and ways of dealing with depression and will be held on Tuesday at LAC in room 1006 building A from 2 to 3 p.m.